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- Stunts
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Arguably Hollywood's greatest stunt driver ever, Carey Loftin's amazing driving and stunt skills were utilized in dozens of Hollywood productions over a period of nearly half a century.
Loftin was born on January 31st, 1914 in Blountstown, Florida and broke into movie stunt work in the late 1930s. Loftin's expertise with motor vehicles, including cars, trucks & motorcycles, saw him involved in contributing his skills to numerous cult films of the 1960s / 1970s that featured thrilling car chase sequences including The Love Bug (1969), Bullitt (1968), Vanishing Point (1971)Diamonds Are Forever (1971), The French Connection (1971), Duel (1971), Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and White Line Fever (1975). The versatile Loftin also appeared in front of the camera as an actor in over seventy minor roles during his long career.
Loftin was still contributing stunt and driving work in feature films until his mid-seventies, and eventually retired from film in 1991. He died in March 1997, in Huntington Beach, California from natural causes.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Resembling Hedy Lamarr with her brunet sultry looks, beautiful second-string actress Patricia Dane possessed a rough and rowdy exterior, which worked much better for her in front of the camera than off of it. Born Thelma Patricia Ann Pippen in Jacksonville, Florida, her father died shortly after her birth and the infant was placed in the care, for a time, of her grandparents. When her mother remarried a man named Byrnes, young Thelma went back to live with her and was raised with the new name of Thelma Byrnes.
Following graduation from Andrew Jackson High School in Jacksonville, Patricia entered the University of Alabama. She moved to New York in 1938 with the intentions of being a fashion designer, but her dark-eyed beauty instead led her to instant money with modeling jobs. This opened a few doors and she quickly got caught up in the New York whirlwind "high life," becoming known around town as a feisty party girl.
Cast in her first role as a well-endowed Ziegfeld Girl in MGM's splashy, musical aptly named Ziegfeld Girl (1941), the studio immediately signed her up. She made minor impressions in Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941) and as gangster Robert Taylor's girl in Johnny Eager (1941), which led to co-star billing in the "B" films Grand Central Murder (1942), as a volatile, cold-hearted actress who meets a nasty end, _Northwest Rangers (1942) and _Manhattan Melodrama (1942)_.
Patricia was squired about town with a number of eligible bachelors but on April 8, 1943 she became Mrs. Tommy Dorsey. Following a role in the Red Skelton vehicle I Dood It (1943), she left films per the renowned bandleader's insistence. The marriage was stormy to say the least, with some grand knockout fights that made headlines as both were pretty wild tipplers (she would often refer themselves as "The New Battling Bogarts"). This marriage had little chance for survival and on August 26, 1947 it was finished. She never remarried.
Patricia could now return to films and did so with the minor entries Joe Palooka in Fighting Mad (1948) and Are You with It? (1948). Nothing came of it. She made more unattractive news in 1949 when she and MGM actor Robert Walker were arrested for driving erratically, public drunkenness and resisting arrest. After this, all she could find were unbilled parts in Road to Bali (1952) and A Life of Her Own (1950).
Moving to Blountsown, Florida, Patricia's life quieted down considerably becoming, of all things, a librarian in town. She died completely out of the limelight of lung cancer on June 5, 1995.